Visa’s Olympic contactless payment ring a hit with athletes

The Olympics was unsurprisingly a hot-bed of product placement and testing. The likes of capital’s public transit operator, RioCard, made the most of the occasion by introducing new payment methods and technologies to the capital’s citizens and 500,000 visitors.

Visa too capitalised on the two-week moment. Exactly 100 days before the opening ceremony, the company pledged to install 4,000 POS terminals across key Olympic venues, as well as 11 ATMs. Then it partnered with Barclaycard to kit out Team GB with wearable payment devices, using the latter bPay chips.

But there was another team at the Olympics that had its own nifty tech product. Surprisingly called ‘Team Visa’, it consisted of 59 athletes who all received a special contactless ring backed by Visa.

It comes in black or white ceramic band comes in 20 sizes, requires no battery or recharging and is water resistant to a depth of 50 meters. A handy payment method for athletes in costumes that don’t have pockets or those who are in and out of the pool.

Source: Visa USA

Visa worked with NFC Ring to deliver the test rings to clients and athletes but has confirmed that there are no announcements regarding the ring becoming commercially available.